Fig. 1. Evolutionary failure of a population of engineered cells.

A Graphical representation of a differential equation model with one class of failure mutations that completely alleviates the fitness burden of an engineered DNA construct on a host cell. B Population dynamics expected from this model. Subpopulations of failed cells with mutated constructs evolve and outcompete the original engineered cells with functional constructs. Complete failure happens rapidly once the mutant cells reach a detectable frequency in the population. C Approximate numbers of cell divisions that occur as a single engineered cell is grown into cultures on different laboratory and industrial scales after its creation (see Supplementary Data 1). Source data are provided with this paper.